


Broken

by ddagent



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, F/M, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Milk And Cookies, Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:40:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2142726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddagent/pseuds/ddagent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Its two am and the empty kitchen at Providence base probably isn't the best place to be having this discussion. But they are. </p><p>Set during the tail-end of Providence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Agents of SHIELD or any of its characters, or settings - all belongs to Marvel and ABC.
> 
> Okay so one of my lovely anons was watching the series for the first time and asked if there had ever been Philinda hate sex. This fic was meant to be that, then meant to be something else and in the end we have this. It's emotional, but I enjoyed writing it. I hope you all enjoy reading it.

SHIELD was gone. Her identity erased. What remained of her team hid in an underground bunker. The man she considered her best friend couldn’t bear the sight of her.  She’d been through untold trauma, suffered scars both physical and psychological. But through it all she’d had her badge, had _him._ Now she had nothing.

 

It would be so easy to turn to alcohol at a time like this. She’d found scotch in the store rooms of Providence, and there were several miniature bottles of vodka in what remained of the bar on the Plane. Getting drunk would numb the pain, but it wouldn’t soothe it. She knew of only one thing that would bring any comfort.

 

So at two am in the morning, Melinda May sat in the kitchen of Providence Base with a tall glass of milk and an entire box of cookies. She stared listlessly at the glass as condensation pooled around the sides. She raised her good arm and dunked the chocolate chip cookie in the milk, waited a couple of seconds and then took it back out. They were good cookies. It was fresh milk. Yet even that couldn’t cover the sour taste at the back of her mouth, or the ache she felt it in her chest.

 

The florescent lights buzzed overhead, the lights taking a few moments to flicker and hold. Melinda turned to the light switch by the doorway and saw a battered Phil Coulson standing in an old SHIELD t-shirt and a pair of flannel pyjama pants. How many times had she caught him like this, in the middle of the night with a box of cookies and a comic book? The memory didn’t bring her any more comfort than the cookies had.

 

“I’ll go.”

 

She barely heard his words. They were muffled, swallowed by the overhead buzz. He wouldn’t even look at her, his eyes stuck to the linoleum floor. Even when she’d totalled his prized car he’d never been this mad at her. Melinda wondered whether he would, like he had back then, eventually forgive her. She needed it, _wanted it,_ but she knew it wouldn’t come any time soon.  

 

“I was just leaving anyway.”

 

She slid the cookies back into the box and took another swallow of her milk. It was cold, refreshing, but still didn’t do anything for the harsh taste that clung to her palate. When she turned to place the box on top of the cupboard, Phil had moved from the door to the table. His eyes were now transfixed on the half empty glass of milk.

 

“Milk and cookies? _Really_?”

 

Melinda’s hand stilled on the cupboard door. “Don’t start.”

 

“I think I’m entitled to it after what you’ve put me through.”

 

His shoulders sagged; his eyes rimmed with shadows. It had been an emotional few days for them both and what they needed was rest. Not a grudge match at two am in unfamiliar territory. She intended to sweep past Phil, let him have the space he needed and return to the Plane. But instead he caught her hand as she passed and Melinda felt herself pushed against the cupboard doors, her body banging against the metal.

 

“What do you want from me, Phil?” she asked, pressing the palms of her hands against his chest to shove him straight back. “You want to fight? Then get out the mats like we used to at the Academy.”

 

“Academy’s gone. All of it is _gon_ e.” She tried to move past him but was pushed back into their little ring beside the refrigerator. “Everything is gone.”

 

She rested her head against the cupboard door. “ _I know_. You think I don’t feel what you feel, Phil?”

 

His head shook, just like the rest of him. Jitters. She had them too. “SHIELD was everything. My home, my family. Now it’s all gone.” Phil rested against the work top, his hands clenching tight against the edge. “I should have you. I can’t count the times over the past few months that I was glad that you were there. Now I look back and I can’t believe how much of a fool I was.”

 

Melinda caught his gaze and held it. If he wanted to hash this all out now, she wasn’t going to back down. Not now. Not when he was the only thing she had left. “You know it was Clint that told me you’d died. Right after the dust cleared on New York. He didn’t want me to read it in a report.”

 

She paused, letting her words sink in. “Did you think that I knew all along? You were dead for _days_. I went to your funeral, laid flowers on your headstone. You have _no_ idea how hard it was to grieve for you. Your loss, of everyone I’ve buried, was the hardest.” Melinda swallowed, wetting her lips with her tongue. “When Fury told me there was a way to have you back, I…You want an apology? You’re not going to get one.”

 

“I don’t think I want anything from you anymore.”

 

There was no warmth in his gaze, no spark in his blue eyes. When she’d been swallowed by shadows she had turned to him and felt alight. Now she felt cold, his eyes icy as they stared straight through her. She’d wanted to fix him, and she’d tried so hard to stop him from realising he had been broken. For all her struggles she’d wound up breaking them both.

 

“I’m going back to bed.”

 

She walked a few steps to the door before Phil’s voice called back to her. “Did I ever even know you? Or was that a lie too?”

 

The pots and pans that had been stored on one of the tables were pushed to the floor, the clanging and clattering loud enough to wake the dead. Fitting, considering they were all ghosts now. The noise finally got Phil’s attention; and for the first time since he’d walked in on her, Melinda felt like he truly _saw_ her. Storming up to him, she slammed her hands against his chest. Phil jerked up, their bodies pressed closer together than they had both intended.

 

“You know me, Phil, you know me better than anyone ever has or ever will.” Melinda reached out and placed her hands against his chest; felt his heart beat under her outstretched fingers. “There are things you know about me that no one else knows. I’ve shared with you the darkest moments of my life.”

 

“And in mine you just sat back and _watched._ How did it feel after I was tortured, Melinda? How did it feel knowing that they tortured me for answers that you had _?_ ”

 

His hand tore at hers, trying to wrench her away from him. But she flung her other hand on top of his, pressing them both against his heart. “How many times do I have to say that I don’t regret it?” She brushed her thumb against his, feeling him tremble under her touch. “I would have done anything to feel your heart beat again.”

 

“There’s more to it than that and you know it.”

 

He’d stopped looking at her, and Melinda grasped his face and pulled his eyes back to hers. She needed to know he could see her. _Her._ Standing in an empty kitchen in the early hours of the morning; barefoot and wearing a threadbare SHIELD t-shirt. Not Agent May. Not the Cavalry.But Melinda. His best friend. “If things had gone differently in Bahrain, worse than they actually did, are you telling me you wouldn’t have made the same decision?”

 

“That’s not fair.”

 

“ _How?_ How is that not fair? You already threw Bahrain back at me so don’t try to backpedal now. If I’d died in your arms in that little hospital would you not have followed Fury’s decision? Fury, who we _always_ followed?”

 

Phil tried to look anywhere but at her, but she wouldn’t let him. She wanted his answer. His words came out strangled. “That’s not fair. I _loved_ you then.”

 

“And I love you _now_.”

 

Phil’s eyes widened and as her hand fell from his face, his eyes kept hold of hers. She had intended to keep that to herself, another secret to be locked away. Before Bahrain she’d known how he felt. How could she not? When Phil Coulson loved you it was with his entire being. But she hadn’t allowed herself to feel the same. Over time, as he gave his heart to someone else, she’d finally let herself love him. Love, for her, was a weakness. Phil had always been her weakness.

 

It was too quiet in the base, the hum of the lights sounding so wrong for a night like this. Melinda didn’t move; her feet rooted to the floor. She wanted to get some rest, her body needing to reset before they got back into the fight. Phil didn’t move either. His hands were held to his face like he was caught in prayer and she wanted to hold them, cradle them as she finally offered him the comfort she hadn’t been able to before. But she didn’t move, too afraid that if she did they would argue again.

 

Phil spoke first. She was grateful for that. “Could you pass me a glass? And the milk?”

 

She followed his directions, even bringing down the box of cookies for him. As he sat down at one end, he pushed the box into the middle. The only invitation she would get to sit down.

 

Melinda watched him dunk a cookie while she poured herself some more milk. His lips quirked into a half smile as he took a bite. “My Mom used to do this for me. Especially after my father died. There was a time that I’d wanted to come home and join my own kid at the kitchen table with milk and good cookies.”

 

Melinda bobbed her head, watching Phil take another cookie before he nudged the box in her direction. He ate another mouthful before his eyes flicked up to hers. “I can reel off half a dozen moments of us eating cookies or pastries or doing something like this. Every time I think of one I feel sick in the pit of my stomach.” 

 

Her fingers clenched the glass of milk she held, the condensation wetting her skin. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

 

“Doesn’t it? You _lied,_ Melinda. After everything we’ve been through and I…” He pushed his glass of milk away. “I don’t know how I can trust you again.”

 

“I won’t lie to you, not now, not after everything. _Please._ You can ask anything that you want, anything I can tell you. Ask me anything you need to make you trust me again.”

 

His hands were cupped in front of his face, his breathing slow. She went through another cookie before he finally spoke. “Were you there? During any of the procedures?”

 

Melinda shook her head, her hand clutching the glass tighter. “No. Fury brought me on towards the end, when it looked like the project might be successful.”

 

“But you read the report? Before I showed you my copy?”

 

She nodded. “I read…I mean I know…” Melinda looked across the table to where Phil sat, his eyes wide as he took on every answer. “I know you didn’t want to come back, that you wanted to be at peace.”

 

“Did you ever, even for a minute, think that you should have let me?”

 

Her father and grandmother had always been religious, her mother more into tradition than doctrine. She carried no thoughts on Phil’s resurrection on those terms. Any misgivings she had were of his suffering, of his pain of being brought back. She’d read it in the report and she’d witnessed it first hand after he’d been tortured. Yet her answer had never wavered.

 

“No.” Melinda couldn’t look at him, not for this. “It’s selfish but I wanted you back. I _needed_ you back. I would have done this and a hell of a lot more to have this moment with you. Even if you don’t trust me, even if you hate me, at least you’re here.”

 

When she finally could stomach looking back up, Phil was watching her intently. He was there. Brown hair and blue eyes. Ten fingers and ten toes and a pair of knees that was ticklish on one side. She’d caught herself just staring at him so many times these last few months, sometimes unable to reconcile that she was seeing him in the flesh. That he was alive. She stared uninhibited now. He finally caught on to why she was staring and he pressed a hand to where hers had been. His broken heart.

 

“I am here.” He closed his eyes, taking a breath. “Now that I know, I feel like Humpty Dumpty. Do you remember that nursery rhyme? _All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again._ Or maybe I’m Frankenstein.”

 

“You’re not a monster. You’re Phil.”

 

He looked back up at her, his mouth curling in on itself. “Did you always think that? Or did you look at me afterwards and think back to what they did to me? All the surgeries, all the stuff of nightmares they pumped in to me…honestly, _Melinda_ , am I different to you now?”

 

She paused, allowing herself to breathe. Her hand slid across the table, wanting to clutch hold of his but stopping just short. “I remember the first time I saw you after you died. It was in the Triskelion, you’d just had a meeting with Fury.” He nodded, recalling the memory. “I’d heard you were in the building and I just had to see you. Just for a moment. Until I saw you I didn’t quite believe you were back. You got off the elevator and I couldn’t breathe. Everything stopped for that one moment. You were alive. No matter what they did to bring you back, you’re still Phil. Always.”

 

He rubbed his face with his hand, the other curled up against his chest as if he needed to feel his own heartbeat. His eyes were tired, but his gaze was the warmest it had been in days. “Do you remember we had those six months after Bahrain where we didn’t see each other? You’d just transferred; I was in op after op. When I got back I saw you in the Hub talking with Sitwell. My heart started racing and I couldn’t finish the conversation I was having. I can’t even describe how I felt. For those six months when I was without you it was almost like you had died. But you were just standing there rolling your eyes at Sitwell.”

 

“He’d misplaced evidence. I could have thrown him off a building.”

 

“Probably should have done considering he was Hydra.”

 

Melinda managed a shaky laugh, and Phil even joined in. It was the first time in so long that she’d actually heard him laugh, that she’d even seen him smile. Melinda felt that for a few seconds normal order had been restored, that she’d found him in the kitchen and she’d sat with him, unable to sleep whilst he was having trouble. She held her breath, hoping that the moment would continue to last and that the ice between them would begin to melt. She gripped her glass, anchoring herself against the table as she waited for the next question, the next argument.

 

The glass in her hand shattered, breaking the moment.

 

“Shit.”

 

Pushing herself away from the table, Melinda examined her hand. Most of the glass fell away, but there were a few shards still embedded. She pulled out the pieces, dropping them to the surface of the table. The milk in her wound stung. She needed a cloth to stop the bleeding. As she turned to look for one, she felt pressure against her hand. Phil was there with a towel; his hands warm as he held hers. She bit down on her lip, her hand stinging as Phil applied more pressure.

 

“I took a bullet out of you the other day, so I think you’ll live.” She managed another shaky laugh as Phil shuffled them both back to the edge of the table. His hand was still holding hers, cradling it against his body. “You were right, earlier.”

 

“About what?”

 

His eyes looked so defeated, but there was a glimmer of something in them. Something she hadn’t seen in so long. “I would have done anything to save you. I hate that I would have done that but it’s true.”

 

“Do you hate _me_?”

 

Mistrust she could understand, deal with. Indifference was something she could tolerate. But if he hated her she wasn’t sure what to do. She’d follow him to the end, have his back and be by his side whatever came their way. But she wasn’t sure she could face her heart breaking twice. The first time she’d pushed too far to repair it, repair _him._ Phil coming back from the dead seemed to have such an easy solution compared to this.

 

“Phil?” As much as she didn’t want his answer, she needed to hear it.

 

“I don’t. I want to, it would be easier. But I can’t hate you.” Relief flooded through her. Her body sagged beside his, and Phil changed hands so he could press his arm to her shoulders. She’d missed touching him. Missed having him close. Phil held her, his lips brushing softly against her temple. “ _I love you_. I have since the moment I met you. Won’t ever change, won’t ever go away.”

 

Her uninjured hand uncurled itself from her body to rest against his chest, Phil smiling as she felt his heartbeat again. Her other hand clung to the collar of his t-shirt just as she felt his fingers dig into her shoulder. She felt his mouth press a kiss to the top of her head once more. “What happens now?”

 

“I don’t know.” She didn’t. They still had a lot to work through before even discussing the revelations of tonight. Hydra first. Love second. Like always. “With SHIELD gone I’m not sure what’s left.”

 

“We have each other.” 


End file.
